Imagine Tea Party extremists seizing control of a South Carolina town and the Army being sent in to crush the rebellion. This farcical vision is now part of the discussion in professional military circles.

At issue is an article in the respected Small Wars Journal titled Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland: A Vision of the Future.

That is a very good point. But I have looked at modern civil wars, and they dont stay limited for long.

That's entirely true, and to be fair, your point was that in CWII, there would be no ROE. That is largely correct. Once we get there, the game will change.

My point (and that of this article) was directed at the COIN aspects of the use of military force within CONUS. What wasn't explicitly mentioned, and should have been, is that this would likely be a transitional phase into a full scale civil war. You are exactly right in that the social mechanics behind the tight ROE would fall apart and the everything would likely go sideways. Still, how the initial uprising occurs, how it is responded to, and how the events are viewed by the public will set the fault line for how the earth breaks apart.

What the authors did was to sidestep this gigantic, looming concern by engineering an 'obvious racist villain' line in their story. No doubt they found this to be morally reassuring and uplifting way to write what is otherwise a disturbing scenario. Even if there was a 'break', it would be a full civil war but at 5% to 95% rate. The bad guys would be carefully distilled from the rest of society from the get go. Easy peasy. This is a comically simplistic view of counterinsurgency, where real insurgents blend in with and are supported by the people to an alarming degree. Reducing them to cackling cartoon villains is so colossally wrong-headed it brings great clarity as to how we wound up ten years into a dead end fight in Afghanistan.

Sadly, this inclination towards fantasy-based thinking prevents them from seeing the real danger of picking fights with strangers. They may wind up in a war when they merely wanted to deliver a beatdown. It also prevents them from considering that how the initial flare up starts and is handled will set the stage for the following conflict.

304
posted on 08/09/2012 8:13:13 AM PDT
by Steel Wolf
("Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master." - Gaius Sallustius Crispus)

It was obvious even before the ‘08 election that the goal was to destroy freedom, to destroy Western Civilization, and most of all to destroy this country, to turn it into a third-world socialist dungheap.

306
posted on 08/09/2012 8:34:29 AM PDT
by DuncanWaring
(The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)

Now we understand the wisdom of our Founding Fathers when they warned that keeping a standing army could be dangerous to our freedom.

Well, they pretty much spelled it out:

A well regulated (controlled) militia (army) being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Everyone tries to contort the Second to mean this or that, but the whole idea was that the people would retain power over the army by sheer force of numbers (as opposed to martial skill) so long as they remained armed.

The security of a free state could not be ensured any other way if there was to be an army at all.

308
posted on 08/09/2012 8:40:48 AM PDT
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)

You do not credit the blood thirst of Obama's circle. ... Middle-class Communists are the worst, the most bloody-minded. Check your hole card; it might not be worth as much as you think.

I understand your point, and as far as assessing motivations, I think you're spot on.

Still, they are constrained by political and operational realities. Like any other threat, they're not free to operate without consequences. As we used to say, "The enemy always gets a vote in your plan."

In a different world, where Obama and company were free to act without possibility of repercussion or failure, that would be one thing. This is not the case. In particular, the left has a major advantage and a major disadvantage. Their advantage is their reliable special interest voting blocks form a massive constituency that will politically back anything, and I fear that to be *anything*, that is done to keep their checks flowing. The disadvantage is that these loyal elements on the left are not soldiers, and cannot be mobilized. At best, they can be incited to protest locally or to attack their own neighborhoods.

That means that the left needs (a) and army, and (b) a context to use the army. The context being the more important of the two, because we have plenty of armies lying around. The context is what will allow the left to marshal the rank and file of the center-right security apparatus of the U.S. (law enforcement, military, national intelligence) against the far right (patriots, TEA party, Constitutionalists) that are their enemies.

The left has to turn the center-right against the far-right because the left has no army and no way to get one. All they have are dependent masses that will not question them or leave their side. That's a mighty advantage in most cases, but when push comes to shove, throngs of street protestors mean somewhat less than organized troops. The left needs force to back it's intentions up, and that force does not come without complications.

That's exactly why this scenario was written as DHS (center-to-center right) versus the TEA Party/Klan/terrorists (ostensibly the extreme right). The scenario's narrative is crucial because let them split the country along lines favorable to the fight they want to have. It's laughably inept, though, unless anyone out there is aware of a nascent neo-Confederate insurgency rising from the TEA Party that I'm presently unaware of. Sadly, the left may believe this twisted fantasy. This is the stuff that epic miscalculations are made of.

So, despite what our friends on the left would do if they could wave a wand and have their way, down here on earth, they have to play the cards they were dealt. Don't lose sight of the fact that any card they play can and will be countered.

309
posted on 08/09/2012 8:43:42 AM PDT
by Steel Wolf
("Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master." - Gaius Sallustius Crispus)

"An excellent, but possibly fatally flawed analysis. You are assuming the goal is not to destroy the United States."

I am assuming that. I would assess that the goal of the left is a social and political transformation of the United States from a Constitutional republic into a socially just collectivist state run by what they would view as benevolent elites for the betterment of all mankind.

When you get right down to it, transformation is the goal of most of our enemies. Militant Islam would far prefer to conquer the U.S. and convert us at sword point rather than destroy us outright. Same goes for the left.

312
posted on 08/09/2012 8:56:00 AM PDT
by Steel Wolf
("Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master." - Gaius Sallustius Crispus)

Doesn't matter if it is done by a bunch of Arabs in full Arab garb,shouting "Allah Akkbar".

Correct. It isn't what it is, it is what the media's masters of imagery make it look like, and how much they can rely on the ignorance and sheer propensity of the average TV watcher for being suckered.

314
posted on 08/09/2012 8:56:52 AM PDT
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)

I know and have known many good field-grade officers. The Navy has had officers like Marcenko (Commander/05) who were good, and NOT political. It seems that to make 06 and above is where the shift occurs. Look at how many 06s and above it took to rail-road LtCol Lakin into prison for his constitutional stand.

Let’s say that I am National Guard, ordered into a town to make arrests or put down “insurrection”. I don’t want to shoot civilians, and I feel very uncomfortable in my role, but I go. I don’t intend to shoot anyone. Then someone fires on me or shoots the man next to me who is my friend. Where do I go now? Where is my loyalty? Adrenaline. survival instinct, tribal affiliation, lot’s of forces at work here. Now my hind brain and instincts overdrive my cerebral cortex and intellect. This is how we can get played against each other.

Listen to an FBI sniper justify and defend his colleague for shooting an unarmed woman holding an infant.

This is the simple example of how easy it would be to return the USA back to the 1800’s: “ - - - For example, if the Obama-commies shut down the US Electrical Power Grid, and the US Airports, - - - “

Nothing “collapsed,” no “skills” were lost, etc. as you injected into what I had written.

We, due to the mechanical turn of switches by the Obamanation commies, would be without anything that requires electricity; cash/credit registers, air conditioners, furnace fans, street and building lights, electric elevators, trains and the Chevy Volt.

The airports, in control by the Obama-commies, would shut down air transport of food and fuel, relegating us to transportation by ship and train transport a la’ the 1800’s.

Visit any US area today hit by a major storm, and you will see a population living as we did in the 1800’s. The World may run on Oil, but without electricity, we will have to live as or ancestors did in the 1800’s.

BTW, keep on brewing your beer, as the more CO2 that your carbonated beer releases, the more plants can grow to be strong and healthy.

Maybe it will be time to patent a coal-fired ice making machine to keep your beer cool? The coming Global Warming could be brutal.

EveningStar, my apologies for posting the flying saucer image. Yours was a good post.

Travis, having reviewed some information, I see a serious and deleterious economic and information situation developing mostly from the middle and top (yes, allusion to the fomenting of further physical class war from people gorged with debt and increasingly hysterical disseminations of information). The accredited, approved, etc. class is rather delusional in its planning scenarios, of course, and not only in their narrow regards of projected strength here and there, labels, and so on.

First, many of us will become much poorer, speaking of material items. That includes a very large portion of those who consider themselves to be well to do.

Second, an investigation into economic depressions tells as to which class will get its way on social issues (the “progressive” business, where it all started). See our own Great Depression and the effects that it had on the designs and so-called progress of the effete folks of the time (neo-romantics, social deviants,...). The social inclinations of the effete were hushed within a very short time.

Dire necessities lead to re-institutions of necessary social paradigms (what romanticists would call regression, etc.). Tangents of social ease toward anti-family practices are again outlawed, and such leisure class groups are deposed with market crashes, bond collapses, investment/pension “haircuts,” etc.

We’ll see as to how far the pathologies go. Looks like they have further popular academic, political and business momentum. It’s an awesome public affairs challenge.

My general point from guesswork: hard times with such descendents and culture, on average, as in our USA, tend to cause a fall of many unproductive/counterproductive folks in leadership and a return to more traditional moral opinions.

We’re different from some of the other populations (Russia, China and the like), in that we desire freedoms more than they, generally speaking. Always have. Even most of the duped working class Democrat voters. They (other nations, cultures) have only known hard and thorough monarchy/communism/fascism all through their histories.

Example: the czars of Russia also censored speech. Another: same with emperors of china. Even now, Chinese leadership tries to keep all eyes on the Yellow River flowing out to the ocean (the world). Same to great extends south of our southern border (Jefe, always Jefe, nothing changes) and in other cultures.

IMO, economic slide + incremental eliminations of freedoms = a bad mix for the ever more pathological comfy, vain and lazy. Huge public affairs problem—too much. We are not a third world population. We are not the world and are not in agreement with the romantic worldly: those pampered and “educated” in the illusions of tourist reservations.

In the possible event of any great insurrections, I’m still staying as far out of the way as possible, just as you and many others of us will. Too many potential mouthy, delusional chiefs in the most likely scenarios—nearly all of them gorged too much on television, junk food, leisure, higher education (see sexual confusions, illusions about tea parties and the like) etc. Let ‘em fight it out, while we enjoy peace and quiet. We’ll rebuild afterward.

Oh, and many politicos are screeching that we’ll see communism. Well, even if, that would be rule by “thugs” not to include contemporary personalities in leadership. The political/regulator socialists still lose to resurgent “patriarchy” and all. Whole lot of fancy folks (see tourist reservations, not old marketplaces and neighborhoods on the outside of those) only think they know things about the more dictatorial countries. They’re not respected the morning after.

Witness also, the decreasing respect and attention of the population for socially consolidated, contemporary politics. Many more are irked and are beginning to see a decades-long class war perpetrated against them (mostly inadvertent by those in trade and offices), while the shrinking political class begins to shriek generalizing projections against the rest of the general population.

Most people will work hard if allowed to do so. Thing is, it’s illegal (e.g., rural zoning against one-horse manufacturing shops). Most people are flamed by politicos as being nothing more than uber-populating, trash, stinking up the scenery.

There’s also more ingenuity out there than I previously assumed. I looked around at quite a bit of it.

Lee felt an honorable defeat and national reconciliation was preferable to decades of dirty war, atrocities, and the much deeper national hatreds that would be developed. It’s been a few years since I read that in a CW1 history, don’t quote me!

I've no doubt your quote is good; I've seen similar. But my point was, he was quoted as having changed his mind privately by 1870, when he unbosomed himself of his private thoughts to a visiting ex-Confederate from Texas. That man confided in a minister and seminary dean he knew, who in turn published the recollection in his memoirs, near the end of the century.

The confidential conversation with Lee took place at the close of a meeting called by the U.S. Army of the surviving senior Confederate generals. General Rosecrans presided, and was charged with reporting back what the Confederate generals were thinking. This was at the time the Force Acts were under active consideration.

Y’all are discussing this scenario of a “civil war”. Perhaps you should read some history to see what that means.

During the Revolutionary war, it meant Loyalists in towns dominated by Revolutionaries were were harassed and their houses were burned (and vice versa - look at the history of those who signed the Declaration of Independence). This occurred far from the battlefields.

During the War between the States, the war wasn’t just between the northern and southern armies - it was ‘Bleeding Kansas’ and the atrocities of the raiders in Missouri (both sides).

In Argentina, both sides had “death squads”.

We appear to be building towards a civil war, but the next civil war will not be limited to a militarized force surrounding a geographic area (e.g., town, city, State) — it will be nation wide, neighbor against neighbor. It will be between those who believe that the purpose of the Constitution is to limit the power of the FedGov, and those who believe it interferes with building a FedGov that will ensure Social Justice (and Environmental Justice, and ...).

After some instigating incident where the FedGov steps over the line and cracks down, all restraints will be discarded -— targets will not be limited to the militarized forces doing the cracking — it will include “soft targets” [there are more of them, and they are softer].

Liberals publicly advocating a crackdown on the right with armed forces, whether politicians, legislators, newspaper editors, columnists, TV News anchors, will become targets of retribution [you want a war, here it is]; and then the target list will grow to include bureaucrats enforcing liberal policies.

Consider - if a militarized FBI or EPA or IRS force stormed your friend’s farm, what would be more effective resistance - retribution against the individual members of that militarized force, or against the EPA/IRS bureaucrat that ordered it? It wouldn’t be a militia that did it (with their FBI infiltrators), it would be a harder to find lone individual.

Let’s say that I am National Guard, ordered into a town to make arrests or put down “insurrection”. I don’t want to shoot civilians, and I feel very uncomfortable in my role, but I go.

Or let's say you're RA, and ordered to arrest mobilized Guard units and officers mustering at the (totally legal, totally constitutional) command of the governor of their State.

That's the Merriman scenario all over again, and it's also the Missouri Militia Volunteers, who were overreached in their own camp and ordered to surrender by a RA officer leading a whomped up force of regulars and Missouri Wide Awakes (think ACORN, think Sturmabteilungen, think New Black Panther Party). The Wide Awakes were secretly armed by the governor of Illinois illicitly, at the order of Abraham Lincoln, two months before he was sworn into office.

I agree with you 100%. Posts and threads get deleted that shouldn’t be and others that are shameful are allowed to remain. Up is down, black is white, crazy sh*t around here lately but it’s his forum, he runs the show.

337
posted on 08/09/2012 2:04:28 PM PDT
by mojitojoe
(American by birth. Southern by the grace of God. Conservative by reason and logic.)

"We appear to be building towards a civil war, but the next civil war will not be limited to a militarized force surrounding a geographic area (e.g., town, city, State)  it will be nation wide, neighbor against neighbor. It will be between those who believe that the purpose of the Constitution is to limit the power of the FedGov, and those who believe it interferes with building a FedGov that will ensure Social Justice"

Precisely. There are two competing versions of the future that are becoming of a size unable to share the same geographic space. This town just won't be big enough for the both of us.

You're exactly right that the next civil war won't be neat matches of tank divisions grappling for terrain, all set up according to respected rules and utilizing classic order of battle. They make it sound as though it would be a gentleman's duel that will be fought according to established doctrine and will end once one side is outmaneuvered and forced to concede defeat.

What they don't tell you is that in a real civil war, people will take power tools to each other, drill holes in their heads and leave the bodies hanging from bridges and power lines.

It will be everywhere, and not just where people assume it will be. The educated, urban Iraqis were far crueler to their captured enemies than the illiterate, warlike Afghans. The people least accustomed to fighting will be the ones most eager to push the limits once the fight arrives. Liberals may not make great warriors or organized opponents, but God help you if wind up caught up in one of their mobs once things start going sideways. What they'll lack in skill they'll make up for in viciousness. Many liberals will be shocked at just how far they've been conditioned to hate their opponents, and what that hate will make them capable of.

Certainly, the right won't be playing with kid gloves either. Once the tit-for-tat starts it will get very messy, and no one, be they man or woman, elderly or child, will be safe.

338
posted on 08/09/2012 2:07:08 PM PDT
by Steel Wolf
("Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master." - Gaius Sallustius Crispus)

. “Col. Benson and Ms. Weber contend, Army officers are professionally obligated to consider the conduct of operations on U.S. soil. “

“Professionally”?Interesting inherint limitation in the rational.Are they not Americans? Since the Army is openly discussing fighting The People may The People beging discussing and contemplationg fighting the “professionals”?

339
posted on 08/09/2012 2:40:15 PM PDT
by TalBlack
(Evil doesn't have a day job.)

I too am a veteran and don't believe Obama meets the standard set in the Constitution of being a Natural Born Citizen, but I am curious as to what you think my son, an two year E-4, is supposed to do about the belief that Obama doesn't meet the Constitutional requirement to be CinC.

My son is doing his duty, which basically breaks down to obeying the lawful orders of his immediate superiors. When you were in the military what did you do to correct the Constitutional problems with the President and the Joint Chiefs?

344
posted on 08/09/2012 3:23:04 PM PDT
by ScubieNuc
(When there is no justice in the laws, justice is left to the outlaws.)

Interesting to ponder if something had spurred Lee to change his mind in April of 65 instead of 70. If he had given the order to head for the hills and begin “irregular operations,” who knows what the USA would look like today? A GW could have stretched on for a decade or longer. The North might well have quit first. Interesting alt history.

The military probably has plans for dealing with domestic insurrections. These two writers, who don't have any real authority, introduced the "tea party" into discussion of such plans, even though it doesn't really fit -- probably because they didn't know what the "tea party" was, though maybe because they wanted to rile a lot of people up and create a commotion. It looks like it worked.

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